Thanksgiving

We walk on starry fields of white
    And do not see the daisies,
For blessings common in our sight
    We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
    To crown our lives with splendour,
And quite ignore our daily store
    Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
    Upon our thought and feeling;
They hang about us all the day,
    Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
    We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
    And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year
    But holds some hidden pleasure,
And, looking back, joys oft appear
    To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
    Who love and labour near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
    While living hearts can hear us.

Full many a blessing wears the guise
    Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
    Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
    To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
    To gladden every morrow.

We ought to make the moments notes
    Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
    Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
    As weeks and months pass o'er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
    A grand Thanksgiving chorus.